I think Pavlov knew that food-salivation wasn’t hardwired, and IIRC he makes the point in detail in the lectures. AFAICT many (but certainly not all, and perhaps not even most) contemporaryretellings of the experiment are extremely sloppy in this way, and the quoted source doesn’t go on to correct the misapprehension.
I would put it as: At the beginning of the experiment, adult dogs salivate when they see food. Therefore, relatively speaking, food-salivation is the “unconditioned” stimulus, since you don’t have to condition the dog during the experiment in order to produce the response of salivation.
I think Pavlov knew that food-salivation wasn’t hardwired, and IIRC he makes the point in detail in the lectures. AFAICT many (but certainly not all, and perhaps not even most) contemporary retellings of the experiment are extremely sloppy in this way, and the quoted source doesn’t go on to correct the misapprehension.
I would put it as: At the beginning of the experiment, adult dogs salivate when they see food. Therefore, relatively speaking, food-salivation is the “unconditioned” stimulus, since you don’t have to condition the dog during the experiment in order to produce the response of salivation.